Tag Archives: Batman

Movies

DC Movie schedules…

Curious as to what’s going on with the DC movie schedule… after, that is Wonder Woman ’84 and Shazam!…?

Then check out this article presented on i09.com and written by Germain Lussier:

Three DC Movies are coming summer of 2021

The big news is that one of the films, The Batman (or whatever it will be called when all is said and done) will not feature Ben Affleck in the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. Looks like his days in the role are officially finished.

I enjoyed Ben Affleck’s foray into the role but can’t say I’m surprised or terribly unhappy he’s done in the role. Nowadays and with so many films featuring recurring characters, I’ve reached a point where I know actors won’t be tied to a role forever and there is a good chance we’ll see others take the role on, for better or worse.

Now… what’s going to happen with Henry Cavill’s Superman? Will we soon hear about a reboot of that role, as well?

Speaking of other roles/movies: The other two films mentioned in the above article are The Suicide Squad and DC Super Pets. The former is the film James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) wrote and may direct and which, according to the article, is not beholden to the first Suicide Squad film and may feature a mostly new cast. The later, I strongly suspect, will be an animated film of some sort.

Also not mentioned is the Birds of Prey movie (which appears to be filming right now and features the return of Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn), and the Joaquin Phoenix Joker film (which concluded filming a few weeks back). Also not mentioned, nor has filming begun, of The Flash and New Gods film.

Stay tuned!

Movies

Heath Ledger…

Over at slashfilm.com and in an article written by Hoai-Tran Bui concerning…

Heath Ledger had planned to return as the Joker after The Dark Knight

While I don’t want to spoil the article, which itself is lifted from a news.com.au article, features an interview with Kate Ledger, Heath Ledger’s sister, who states that indeed it was Mr. Ledger’s intention to return as the Joker in the next Christopher Nolan directed Batman film.

A true shame.

I know there are those who don’t like the third Nolan Batman film, but I’m not one of them.  I don’t feel the film was superb (I’d tend to agree with most fans and critics that The Dark Knight, the second film in the trilogy and the one featuring Mr. Ledger as the Joker, was the overall best of the lot), mind you, but I think people were being overly harsh when they beat it down.

Regardless, hearing about this makes one all the sadder regarding Mr. Ledger’s passing.

Would the third film have been considerably different with Ledger back in the role of the Joker?

I suspect so.

Would we have still seen Bane and Catwoman and Talia?

Perhaps, though I suspect Bane’s role would have been much smaller.

Still, a sad shame we never got to see more of Mr. Ledger, not only in this role, but likely in the possibility of having a robust career with many other interesting roles.

Movies

Weirdest movie news… perhaps ever!

I read about this movie news yesterday and I’m still more than a little stunned.  The article is by Mike Fleming Jr. and its presented on deadline.com:

The Joker Origin Story On Deck: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver, Martin Scorsese Aboard WB/DC Film

Todd Phillips is probably best known as the director of the three The Hangover films (he was also the writer of the later two in the series, which were IMHO quite horrid).

Scott Silver is mostly known as a writer and his most successful project was 8 Mile.

Martin Scorsese, on the other hand, needs no introduction, being the acclaimed director of such seminal films as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and, more recently, The Wolf of Wall Street.

So the article above states that these three individuals have gotten together to make a Joker “stand alone” film which explores Batman’s arch-villain’s origin.  Mr. Scorsese, it is implied, will serve as a producer and not direct.

Now, a few points regarding this article:

  1. How freaking insane does that trio of individuals coming together to make a Joker film (of all things!) sounds?
  2. Is it really wise to make a Joker film without Batman?
  3. What exactly will the tone of this film be?  The article indicates the film will be “hard boiled” yet at least one of these three individuals is known for comedies.
  4. It is stated the film will lie outside the other movie continuity, which seems to indicate we won’t have Jaret Leto playing the character.  Given we have Martin Scorsese involved, can Leonardo DiCaprio be far behind?
  5. I repeat: How freaking insane does this sound?!?

When I read the original article, my first move was to check the calendar.

Yesterday, alas, was not April 1st.

Over on various comment boards some people far more clever than I wrote that this sounded like a movie version of Mad Libs.

I agree.

Will this film ever get made?

I wonder.

And if it does, will it be any good?

We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

Movies, TV

Adam West, R.I.P.

When news came yesterday shortly before noon that actor Adam West passed away, I wrote the following over on the comment section of i09.com:

The curse of growing old yourself is seeing all these people who have given you such joy themselves age and, in time, pass.

I liked Adam West and admired the work he did in his most famous role, that of Batman.  Someone over on YouTube posted their favorite scenes from the 1966 Batman movie…

As you can see and, provided you’ve lived under a rock these past fifty or so years and therefore never heard of or saw the Batman TV series or the movie it was based on, this version of Batman was very much tongue in cheek and often quite silly.

And yet, what made it work was something the Zucker Brothers and Abraham did nearly a decade later with such films as Airplane!: The silliest crap works best when at least one person in the middle of it takes the material dead seriously.

This, effectively, was Adam West’s Bruce Wayne/Batman.  In the middle of madness he was acting with a dead seriousness.

And it was ingenious!

As I wrote above, there is a curse to getting older and, part of that curse, is seeing people who you may or may not know personally but who you love for whatever reason also grow older.  In some cases, you witness their passing and it really, really sucks.

Last year I was shocked and very saddened when David Bowie passed away.  The realization there would be no more “new” David Bowie music, though one can hope some music hidden away in his vaults might see the light of day, is a startling thing, just as the thought of never seeing or hearing another Adam West bit hits me.

Time affect us all.  Even the stars.

Rest in Peace, Mr. West.

You brought me plenty of joy over my lifetime and tonight, just for the heck of it, I might sit down and watch a few Bat-episodes on my Bat-TV.

Books/Literature, Comic Books/Graphic Novels

Crediting Bill Finger…

This fascinating bit of news appeared over the weekend:

DC Will Finally Credit Bill Finger As Co-Creator of Batman

For those who don’t know about this, since Batman’s first appearance way back in Detective Comics #27 released in 1939 and until today the “sole” creator of Batman has been listed as Bob Kane but most people who followed the character/creation knew that many, if not most, of Batman’s concepts were created by the series’ writer, Bill Finger.

To be fair, Bob Kane was the artist and person who thought up the idea of a “Bat-Man”.  But the concept he originally conceived of was radically changed to what we are more familiar with in the hands of the series’ writer, Mr. Finger.

Ty Templeton offered an amusing take on the Bob Kane Batman which gives you an idea where it went from his initial concept:

People have blasted the late Mr. Kane for taking credit for everything Batman related and snubbing all others.  It wasn’t until well after Mr. Finger died in 1974 that Mr. Kane finally copped to the fact that Mr. Finger should have been given a lot more credit for the creation/concepts behind the Batman character.

So, I’m happy to hear that Mr. Finger is getting credit where it is due…

…however…

I’m not trying to be a smart-ass here, but the character of Batman also owes a considerable debt to the works of Walter B. Gibson.  Mr. Gibson was an insanely proficient writer (it was said he could write up to 10,000 words a day) who wrote most of The Shadow pulp novels released from 1931 to 1949.

He was also the man who came up with many concepts which were subsequently cribbed (for those who don’t want to play nice, “stolen”) by Bill Finger and re-used in the Batman comics.  In fact, the very first Batman story, the one published in that 27th issue of Detective Comics mentioned above, was pretty much a scene for scene comic book adaptation of the Shadow story “Partners in Peril”, only with Batman sub-ing for The Shadow.

But don’t take my word for it.  Check it out for yourself:

http://www.shadowsanctum.com/pulps/shadow9.html

I believe the reprint book is still available for a reasonable price via Amazon.  Happy hunting!

Shadow9

Comic Books/Graphic Novels, Movies, TV

Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Batman…

…according to Time magazine:

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/07/13/holy-bat-trivia-top-10-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-batman/#a-shoe-salesman-made-batman-who-he-is-today

Not to sound too terribly geeky, but much of the material presented was familiar -the one big exception being all those numerical items.  I may be a fan of the character, but to have all that data at my fingertips would have been…scary.

Of all the items presented, this is the one I found the most surprising and had never heard of before:

Fifteen years (after the 1949 Batman series) came Batman Dracula, a little-seen avant-garde oddity written and directed (without the approval of the comic publisher) by a rising young artist named Andy Warhol.

As it turns out, some of that (very bizarre) material can be found on YouTube:

And some more: